The other passenger shook his head. “All sheer nigger luck. He bought the Ditch plant afore there was a ghost of a chance for the Divide Railroad, just out o' pure d——d foolishness. He expected so little from it that he hadn't even got the agreement done in writin', and hadn't paid for it, when the Divide Railroad passed the legislature, as it never oughter done! For, you see, the blamedest cur'ous thing about the whole affair was that this 'straw' road of a Divide, all pure wildcat, was only gotten up to frighten the Pacific Railroad sharps into buying it up. And the road that nobody ever calculated would ever have a rail of it laid was pushed on as soon as folks knew that the Ditch plant had been bought up, for they thought there was a big thing behind it. Even the hotel was, at first, simply a kind of genteel alms-house that this yer Barker had built for broken-down miners!”
“Nevertheless,” continued Demorest, smiling, “you admit that it is a great success?”
“Yes,” said the other, a little irritated by some complacency in Demorest's smile, “but the success isn't HIS'N. Fools has ideas, and wise men profit by them, for that hotel now has Jim Stacy's bank behind it, and is even a kind of country branch of the Brook House in 'Frisco. Barker's out of it, I reckon. Anyhow, HE couldn't run a hotel, for all that his wife—she that's one of the big 'Frisco swells now—used to help serve in her father's. No, sir, it's just a fool's luck, gettin' the first taste and leavin' the rest to others.”
“I'm not sure that it's the worst kind of luck,” returned Demorest, with persistent gravity; “and I suppose he's satisfied with it.” But so heterodox an opinion only irritated his antagonist the more, especially as he noticed that the handsome woman in the back seat appeared to be interested in the conversation, and even sympathetic with Demorest. The man was in the main a good-natured fellow and loyal to his friends; but this did not preclude any virulent criticism of others, and for a moment he hated this bronze-faced stranger, and even saw blemishes in the handsome woman's beauty. “That may be YOUR idea of an Eastern man,” he said bluntly, “but I kin tell ye that Californy ain't run on those lines. No, sir.” Nevertheless, his curiosity got the better of his ill humor, and as the coach at last pulled up at the cross-road for Demorest to descend he smiled affably at his departing companion.
“You allowed just now that you'd bin five years away. Whar mout ye have bin?”
“In Europe,” said Demorest pleasantly.
“I reckoned ez much,” returned his interrogator, smiling significantly at the other passengers. “But in what place?”
“Oh, many,” said Demorest, smiling also.
“But what place war ye last livin' at?”
“Well,” said Demorest, descending the steps, but lingering for a moment with his hand on the door of the coach, “oddly enough, now you remind me of it—at Hymettus!”